What does an American accent sound like?

Southern accents make most American girls a little weak in the knees as well! Especially the polite ones (and yeah, I'm not into the cowboy hat usually, but in this case: yes). There is definatly a big spanish accent in Florida as well. We have a lot of Hispanic people, mostly from Cuba, a few from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and so on. So in reality, a southern accent usually is from Virginia, down to Georgia, to Mississippi, to Missouri (that's loosely speaking). But in the S. Florida, it's either a Spanish or New York/Jersey accent that we hear frequently (because so many people vacation and move here)

 

Usually when I put on an accent, it's to highlight a stereotype we don't necessarily have over here. Take the New York Jew - over here, Jewish people talk like everyone else, so it isn't funny to 'do their accent'. And the equivalent of the American deep south hick is Yorkshire or Wales, and even then it's not a close approximation: there's no in breeding, and (most) of the people work. So when I want to indicate a re-heally stupid person, I cross the pond and take a page of of a hick's papery box with words all in it. Sometimes though, I just slip into an accent, with no humorous effect intended.

On a side note, it's probably the Irish accent that makes some English girls weak at the knees. It's my most requested accent.

 

Irish is lovely! Irish guys are supposed to be big hard fighting brutes and I love that stereotype. Yummy.

See that's no fun not having the New York Jewish accent, I hope you guys watch lots of the Nanny or Barbara Streisand to make up for that!

I do DESPISE the new "New Jersey" craze going around. That accent makes me want to die, not to mention my eyes bleed from the look of an orange tan. They're like American "Ganguro" people....

I don't understand that lol....

 

Oi! That's just the ones we exported.

 

We ladies around the world thank you. lol.

So is it true? Or there a lot of Ronald Weasley's among the Colin Ferrel's?

 

Most native english-speaking people in America do not have an accent. Southerners have accents, and those from New England also have them, but people from the Midwest and West carry the least accented form of English.

Some who read that statement may disagree with me on this, but there is actually a scientifc basis for that assertion. If you have the time, and are interested in the study of Linguistics, then you can discover exactly why that is. It is somewhat complicated to explain, as you have to be familiar with certain concepts in Linguistics first in order to understand this point, but when people from California (most places) say things like "oh, to Australians, we Americans have just as much of an accent as they do", this is actually not quite an accurate statement. Yes, we do have accents and speak differently from Australians, but the Midwest form of "standard" American speech is less inflected and much more heterogenized than the standard Australian form of speech as well as its cousins in different regions.

So, in short, you could say on the basis of the linguistic analysis, that the standard American accent is the most "normal" way to pronounce words and speak the English language.

 

Had to look up Ronald Weasley. Why do you mention him? He's not Irish, or were you just holding him up as the antithesis of a brute?

Colin Farrel is a real Dub. That is a very strong Dublin accent he has. The accents here are as varied as you'd find in the US, weirdly.

 

Surely Received Pronunciation (as spoken for example by David Cameron) is the most normal way of speaking the English language, because that's recognised as 'standard English'. As far as I know there is pretty much always some variation from this form in all American speech.

Mind you, I have just reread your post, and if you're just referring to American English then I see what you mean.

 

It's a standard, which is a far cry from the "norm"in the UK. A tiny percentage of brits speak like that. (Most of them used to work fro the BBC, and even that is largely gone now.) It all depends on the yardstick used.

 

I'm an American living in the UK and, trust me, the folks over here are always commenting on my accent. Then we have the silly "You have the accent--No, you have the accent" conversation. Just like I used to have with my southern-US relatives (I was raised in the north).

When you say "homogenous" are you talking about percentages? That--according to some linguists--a greater number of people per capita speak with what you call the "normal" American accent? I hope you're not implying that the accent in question is somehow inherently a more "natural" way of forming sounds in the English language. T'ain't no such thing!